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Accessibility requirements for software and Web applications</TITLE>
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<A NAME="BEHEDGDE"></A><h1>Accessibility requirements for software and Web applications</h1>
<A NAME="TI6116"></A><p>Organizations that want to make their applications accessible
to the disabled might have to comply with several sets of slightly
different regulations and guidelines, depending on the countries
in which their products will be sold or used.</p>
<A NAME="TI6117"></A><h4>Section 508</h4>
<A NAME="TI6118"></A><p>Section 508, enacted in
1998, is an extension of the U.S. Government's Rehabilitation
Act. Section 508 requires that all electronic and information technology
that U.S. Government agencies develop, procure, maintain, and use must
be accessible to members of the general public who have disabilities. Many
individual states in the U.S. have adopted these requirements as
well. Organizations that offer software applications for sale to
the U.S. Federal government and many state governments, as well
as companies that use or sell accessibility aids, must comply with
these regulations to ensure that their products qualify for purchase.</p>
<A NAME="TI6119"></A><h4>WCAG 1.0</h4>
<A NAME="TI6120"></A><p>The Section 508 guidelines are based on the accessibility
guidelines published in May 1999 by the World Wide Web Consortium.
These are known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version
1.0. The WCAG 1.0 is the common basis for most accessibility guidelines
and the standard for government enforcement of regulations in many
countries today. These guidelines have three priority levels. Priority
1 deals with features essential for access to Web content; Priority
2 defines practices that make Web sites more usable and comprehensible
in general, and especially to those using accessibility tools; Priority
3 describes enhanced usability features that make use of the newest
technology. </p>
<A NAME="TI6121"></A><p>Section 508 includes most of the Priority 1 WCAG recommendations,
several from Priorities 2 and 3, and also a few other requirements
that are not in the WCAG. The WCAG recommends that organizations
strive to meet the Priority 1 and 2 guidelines.</p>
<A NAME="TI6122"></A><h4>French legislation</h4>
<A NAME="TI6123"></A><p>The French government has also enacted legislation requiring
Web accessibility for those with disabilities and published criteria
for conformance called AccessiWeb. AccessiWeb includes
three levels, Bronze, Silver, and Gold, that correspond roughly
to the three priority levels of the WCAG, but AccessiWeb promotes
many level 2 and 3 requirements to higher levels and includes more
detail than some of the WCAG recommendations.</p>
<A NAME="TI6124"></A><h4>U.K. legislation</h4>
<A NAME="TI6125"></A><p>The United Kingdom has passed legislation called the Disability Discrimination
Act that requires
Web sites targeting British residents to be accessible to those
with disabilities. Enforcement of the U.K. law currently is based
on the WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 guidelines.</p>
<A NAME="TI6126"></A><h4>Other countries</h4>
<A NAME="TI6127"></A><p>Many other countries have enacted legislation requiring government
or general-use Web sites to be accessible to the disabled. Several
of these countries explicitly require compliance with Priorities
1 and 2 of the WCAG 1.0, but a few require only Priority 1 compliance.
Many other countries without legislated requirements use the WCAG
standards in practice.</p>
<A NAME="TI6128"></A><h4>WCAG 2.0</h4>
<A NAME="TI6129"></A><p>The WCAG standards are currently being updated with the intention
that they will become a universally accepted set of international
guidelines for Web accessibility. WCAG 2.0 will focus on general
principles that set out the characteristics Web sites must have
to be accessible to users with disabilities. Separate documents
will spell out the technical requirements so that these can be updated
easily as technology changes without requiring updates to the general
principles.</p>
<A NAME="TI6130"></A><h4>For more information</h4>
<A NAME="TI6131"></A><p>For information about the accessibility requirements of the
U.S. Federal Government for software applications and Web sites,
see the <A HREF="http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/">Guide to the Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards</A>
 and
the <A HREF="http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/standards.htm">standard</A>
.</p>
<A NAME="TI6132"></A><p>For the generally accepted international recommendations for
Web accessibility, see the <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/">WCAG guidelines</A>
. For the new guidelines under development,
see the <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/">WCAG 2.0 guidelines</A>
.</p>
<A NAME="TI6133"></A><p>For the Web accessibility criteria adopted by the French government,
see the <A HREF="http://www.accessiweb.org/fr/Label_Accessibilite/">AccessiWeb criteria</A>
.</p>

